– How bout those Rays? Can they really pull the rabbit out of the hat and clench a playoff berth? I mentioned this earlier as a joke, but the Tampa Bay Rays are about to pull a Houdini.

– But which is more impressive- The Rays surge, or the Boston Red Sox collapse?

– Good old Manny being Manny again…or is it Manny being Kirby now? Either way, at least Manny Ramirez’s legacy was already tarnished, right? Makes this episode just a bit less shocking.

– I am not sure what all the hullaballo was about MLB not allowing the Mets to wear hats that did not meet the “uniform” requirements as written in the rulebook. It is a rule people. And it is not like there were not other ways that the Mets, and every other NFL and MLB team used to show support for all of 9/11. Sure, they could have shown a little leeway, but then they might be setting a precedent that could cause problems somewhere down the unforeseen road.

– Someone asked me to describe teaching 6th graders in a single sentence the other day…and this is what I came up with- “Teaching 6th grade is the equivalent of herding cats.”

– Watching a player begin his decline as a ball player is always difficult. It is even more difficult when said player has never given anyone a reason to hate. That said, it will be interesting to see how Ichiro Suzuki‘s 2012 campaign goes. Is him not reaching 200 hits that big a deal this year? Does it mark the start of his decline? Only time will tell.

– Good luck to Andrew McCutchen while negotiating what hopefully turns out to be a favorable deal with the Pirates. It’s really exciting to see a team like Pittsburgh rising from their grave. It gives Astros fans hope.

– Speaking of the Houston Astros, we currently host 16 rookies on our roster, with 10 of them being pitchers. Yikes. Talk about rebuilding.

Notes: Thanks to a decent month of July, McKenry has hit his way into the Pirates’ starting catcher role, and since then has hit just enough to not lose it. He seems to be good for a bomb or double here and there, kind of like most of the Pittsburgh offense – see: Alvarez, Jones, Overbay, Pearce and Wood. And much like the aforementioned players, McKenry also strikes out a ton; he’s fanned 28 times in 117 at-bats and worked only five walks.